


Bang to Rights

by boxparade



Series: Transformative [6]
Category: Hawaii Five-0 (2010)
Genre: First Kiss, Fluff and Humor, Getting Together, M/M, Past Relationship(s), SJW!Grace, Steve is a giant softie, Trans Character, embarrassing 90s trends, pineapple as an antagonist
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-10
Updated: 2015-11-10
Packaged: 2018-04-30 21:58:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,548
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5181194
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/boxparade/pseuds/boxparade
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Danny is all too aware that this is not just a hurrah-we-didn’t-get-shot barbecue. It has a distinctly hurrah-you-came-out-to-people flavor to it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bang to Rights

**Author's Note:**

> I COME BEARING GIFTS.
> 
> So I'm really excited about this one, maybe because I've got a nice nicotine buzz going, but also because it is nigh impossible for me to actually ever overcome the hurdle that is getting my damn characters together. But now I have, and this means wonderful things, because I have a billion and two stories that take place after this particular one.
> 
> Don't be a douche, leave me lots of pretty comments so I can chatter away at you, and most importantly, enjoy!

Steve, because he is the type of person who celebrates another successful week of getting shot at, hosts a barbecue at his house. Supposedly it’s a good-job-case-closed barbecue, but Danny is a detective, see? People on this island tend to forget this and seem to think Danny has the deductive skills of a kindergartener, for whatever reason. So Danny is all too aware that this is not just a hurrah-we-didn’t-get-shot barbecue. It has a distinctly hurrah-you-came-out-to-people flavor to it.

Honestly, there is no way Steve was ever black ops. Danny arrives two hours early to help him get the whole shindig together and Steve shoots him so many significant looks that Kamekona could be doing cartwheels next to Steve and Steve would be too busy looking at Danny to notice. To notice _Kamekona._ So it doesn’t exactly take his detective skills to figure out that their resident seal pup has A Mission.

Steve treats parties like ops, and treats this particular party like an undercover op in which Danny is supposed to be blissfully aware of any and everything Steve does. For an undercover op dedicated to Danny and his no-longer-undercover identity, there is _way_ too much pineapple.

He tells Steve as much, and Steve gives him that pinched face that means ‘what is _wrong_ with you?’ and ‘aww the haole is so adorable when he’s angry’ and ‘silence the infidel’ all at once.

Steve says a lot more with his facial expressions than anyone working in law enforcement should.

By the time people besides them show up, Danny has entirely lost the fight on the pineapple. It’s everywhere. Little chunks of tropical, yellow poison. On the plus side, everyone who shows up eats it all so fast it’s almost as if it were never there.

“Boss man,” Kono says cheerily, slapping Steve on the shoulder a couple of times, hard. Kono’s got guns on her, and not just the metal kind. Danny can’t tell if the face Steve makes is pride or pain. Probably both.

Kono walks up to him, pauses for a moment, and then settles on “Not-boss....second-in-command man?” In a few seconds, she nods to say it’ll suffice, and gives Danny the same love tap as Steve. Danny rubs at his shoulder and watches her swagger off to intercept Adam and Charlie, who look like they’re fighting for Kono’s honor with polite small talk. It’s as if neither of them realize that Kono will _murder them_ if she had even the briefest inclination that they thought they could win her.

When Danny looks back, Steve is watching him rub his shoulder and grinning like a maniac.

“Shut up and watch the grill,” Danny says, salty, and then turns his back on Steve’s laughter.

If Steve hadn’t already given away the entire operation, the fact that he invited Rachel should’ve tipped him off. But in she strolls, beautiful as ever, which Danny attributes solely and entirely to the fact that Grace is standing next to her and not at all to her own merits.

“Danno!” Grace says happily, and runs up to hug him like she didn’t know where they were going and that Danny would be here. It’s his favorite part about his daughter, besides all her other amazing qualities.

Kamekona finds her soon enough, and Grace is smart enough to realize she can probably hustle him to get free shrimp or money or lollipops or whatever it is she desires. A pony. Hell, Danny doesn’t know, but Kamekona is a sucker for her wiles. And her card sharp skills.

“Daniel,” Rachel says primly.

“Oh look, Satan herself has arrived to cook the meats with hell fire. Off to the grills you go.”

Rachel gives him a flat look. “Still as witty and charming as the day we met,” Rachel replies smoothly, lifting one eyebrow. Hardy har har.

“Still the raging bitch I mistakenly married,” Danny throws out.

Rachel doesn’t seem nearly as affronted as he’d hoped. “But married you did. Perhaps look inward for the answer to that riddle, hmm dear?” Danny narrows his eyes, but before he can churn out a retort, she breezes on. “What’s the occasion?”

“Oh, you know,” Danny waves a hand around at the small crowd of people. “Not dying.” He pointedly motions toward Steve, blissfully unaware that Danny is going to tear him a new one as soon as this party is over, and his daughter is no longer in range to hear the rant he affectionately calls ‘101 Reasons Not to Invite Rachel’.

“Really,” she drawls, “I was under the impression it was because you’d finally dislodged the stick up your arsehole and started being honest with people.”

Danny snorts derisively. He’s mounting his defense, or maybe devising a way to kick Rachel out of Steve’s backyard without it seeming petty, when Rachel’s eyes snap to Kamekona talking to Grace, and she sweeps past Danny to presumably rescue their daughter from the Very Large Hawaiian Man. Danny already knows Grace could take Kamekona if need be, but Rachel doesn’t. Let her be introduced to the delightful company of their resident shrimp-aficionado. Danny can’t be the only one afflicted by this island’s insanity every day.

But Rachel has a point, or something, which is annoying as hell but sometimes unavoidable, since attorneys tend to have ‘points’ most of the time.

Danny told Steve, Kono, Chin, and then had half of a very awkward conversation with Kamekona before Kono took one for the team and started talking about shrimp. Max already knew, and Adam and Malia were de facto read into the program by virtue of dating someone unlucky enough to be part of Five-0, and now Steve is throwing a party with an undercover alias as ‘Danno’s Coming Out Party’.

Ridiculous.

Danny remembers a time when his life used to make sense. A long, long time ago, in another land far away from here.

Steve is tossing yellow rings of syrupy death on the grill, right next to all their delicious, pineapple-free meats. Danny is about two seconds away from arresting him. That is a _crime._

“What the hell are you doing?”

“Well, Danny,” Steve starts slowly, amused lilt in his voice, “It’s called grilli—”

“It’s called poisoning these perfectly good ribs.” Danny makes shooing motions at Steve until he steps back, and Danny shoves himself into Steve’s place and takes the tongs from his hand. “You’re an animal,” he says while he forks the rings of pineapple into a little stack on a stray piece of foil beside the grill. “Animals shouldn’t be allowed to cook, look at the disaster you almost caused.” He points the tongs at the now pineapple-free grill.

Steve rolls his eyes and crosses his arms in protest. “It’s a barbecue, Danno, there’s supposed to be pineapple.”

“That is where you are wrong, my friend. Pineapple is not ‘supposed’ to be anywhere. Pineapple is supposed to be left on pineapple trees.”

“Pineapple grows on plants near the ground, not trees,” Steve replies readily, like he thinks Danny cares.

“And barbecue comes from good old continental America, not islands. It’s perfectly fine without your plants-near-the-ground-not-trees fruit.”

 _“Danny,”_ Steve whines, in a tone that sounds so close to a child’s that it only bolsters his (firmly rooted in fact) opinion that Steve has the mental and emotional maturity of a toddler. He should have never been given a gun.

“Off with you,” Danny makes vague threats with the tongs disguised as shooing motions. “I will not have a heathen on the grill for _my_ party.”

Steve’s eyes get a maddening twinkle in them, which Danny staunchly ignores.

“Your party, hm?” he asks, arms still crossed but smirking like he’s won something. Ridiculous.

“You’ll thank me when the ribs taste fantastic,” Danny deflects, and then his brilliant, wonderful, amazing daughter has broken away from the clutches of both her mother and Kamekona to grab one of Steve’s hands and drag him toward the other end of the beach. Danny breathes a sigh of relief at the averted crisis, and eyes the pineapple with disdain, wondering if anyone would notice if he slipped it into the trash.

Of course, before he gets the chance, Max walks by, makes a kind of quiet “Ooh,” sound that is so strange coming from Max, Danny almost doesn’t believe he’s heard anything. And then Max steals the piece of foil and all the half-grilled, offending fruit, and he thanks Danny while he whisks it away.

Danny blinks at least ten times before he decides, no. No. He’s gotten shot at this week, a certain amount of leniency should be given to people who get shot at on a weekly basis, so he’s not going to invite insanity with questions where he doesn’t have to. He turns his full attention back to the grill, and as the first sign that things might be right in the world for five blissful minutes, no one dares to interrupt him.

 

###

 

He’s forgotten what it’s like having Rachel and Grace at a party. Especially when they are operating independently of each other. _Especially_ when that party has no ulterior motives, and no defense attorneys to sway, and no parents of Grace’s friends to stay civil with. Actually, he should have seen this as the disaster it was clearly meant to be, because both Grace and Rachel are acting entirely unbridled by social constrictions—Grace because she is innocent and amazing and her heart is made of solid gold, Rachel because she is among Danny’s friends and coworkers and acquaintances and shrimp providers and doesn’t give a damn about decorum.

He can only guess at the horrors of conversational topics that were touched on while he was manning the grill, since Steve was so woefully incompetent. He comes across Gracie first, locked in an incredibly intellectual discussion with Charlie about the genetic factors of gender expression, which nearly floors him because what are they teaching her in school these days? It sounds way too complicated for a girl her age, not that Danny’s _complaining,_ and not that he’s going to stop Grace when she seems to be holding her own with Charlie. He actually swells with pride. That is his daughter, being a genius. Why wouldn’t he?

But then of course the hell-beast is entertaining Toast (what pot den had he crawled out of?) and Kono (dear God no) with slander and lies about the early, _early,_ way too early stages of their relationship. Because Rachel has this insane idea in her head that it is her God-given right to make Danny’s life miserable, which means explaining in gory details exactly how awkward their first few dates had been.

Danny storms over but affects what he thinks is a perfectly calm and not-at-all-sharp smile, then says “Talking about ancient history again, Rachel?” He thinks he sounds perfectly civil. The glee in Kono’s eyes notwithstanding.

“Oh, Daniel, you know how _fond_ I was of those overalls you insisted on wearing.”

Danny grits his teeth. Kono looks about ready to burst. Danny’s half convinced confetti and candy would be to follow. But two can play at this game, so he takes great pleasure in watching Rachel’s pasted smile turn rapidly to a scowl when he brings up the ankle-length button-down denim skirt Rachel owned once upon a time. Danny gleefully recounts the time she got caught in a rainstorm and she’d had to beg Danny for help peeling it off her. Danny thinks she set fire to the thing shortly thereafter.

Rachel must be in a fighting mood, though, because next she brings up Danny’s wallet chain, to which he responds with her tattoo-chokers. Then it’s his buzzcut which made him look more like Sinead O’Connor than any semblance of male, and Rachel’s rainbow assortment of popcorn shirts, and Danny’s soul patch, and Rachel’s zig-zag part, and Danny’s tendency to bathe in CK One, and finally he brings up Rachel’s frankly terrifying obsession with Ani DiFranco.

“I was lesbian in the 90s!” Rachel huffs and straightens her spine, standing a little taller and sipping primly from her drink. “Some leniency wouldn’t be remiss. Honestly.” Then she walks away with all the grace of a wounded animal and Danny groans. Kono is giggling so much she’s started choking, and Danny pats her a few times on the back, hard, until she coughs and squeaks out “Thanks.”

“Bro,” Toast leans in toward Danny, his voice low, “I don’t think your ex knows what a lesbian is.”

Kono swallows funny again and starts hacking up a lung beside him.

Danny opens his mouth, closes it, gives up entirely, and walks away.

He’s extremely bitter about the fact that no one seems to want to give him an award for putting up with this shit without winding up in a padded cell and a straight jacket by the end of the day.

 

###

 

Because Danny is a kind and giving soul, he stays after everyone else has left to clean up Steve’s poor backyard. And to steal Steve’s beer, because he had to suffer through this party. Steve _owes_ him.

He is currently palming one bottle of said stolen beer and leaning his elbows against the railing of Steve’s lanai when Steve steps out to join him, his own beer in hand and a goofy smile on his face.

“You,” Danny says accusingly, pointing a finger at the middle of Steve’s chest.

“Me?” Steve asks, the picture of innocence, blinking at Danny like he’s never done a wrong thing in his life. Damn it all to hell.

Danny’s shoulders slump and he sighs and turns back to the ocean before he gets sucked into Steve’s puppy dog expression. “Grace says thank you.” Grace had, of course, because Danny raised his daughter right.

Steve grins like a loon. “Tell Grace she can plan the next one.”

“There isn’t going to _be_ a next one,” Danny replies, waiting a moment before glancing to the side at his absolutely insufferable partner. Making more puppy dog expressions and pouting like he isn’t a grown adult with guns and muscles and a stupidly ridiculous smile. “I’m out. We celebrated. It’s done. There will be no more happy-coming-out parties because I will no longer be happily coming out.”

“Who said this was a coming out party?” Steve asks, taking a sip of his beer and thinking he’s clever.

“Because, Steven,” Danny says slowly, “You invited my ex-wife. Which I cannot think of a single sane reason for you to do, unless the guest list was somehow devised by means of a checklist of everyone on this island who knows my deepest, darkest secret.”

Steve snorts into his bottle. Alright, so definitely not his deepest, darkest secret. Not even really a secret at all anymore, but that’s not the point.

“Nice job inviting Toast, by the way,” Danny throws out, “He probably thinks my marriage was some sexually deviant hallucination.”

Steve’s eyebrows fly up toward his hairline (which isn’t receding at all, damn him) and says “It’s _Toast.”_

Danny tips the neck of his bottle toward Steve. “That is the first intelligent thing you’ve said all day.”

Steve grins like this is somehow a compliment. He tosses back the last of his beer and Danny follows suit. “Another?”

Danny holds his empty bottle out to Steve and holds back his smirk. “You owe me an entire six-pack, after that mess.”

“Mhm.” Steve takes the bottle and disappears back into the house. Danny settles himself a little more firmly against the railing, clasping his hands together and staring out at the little stretch of beach Steve has somehow claimed for himself. Hawaii seems marginally more bearable in a place like this, though he’s not stupid enough to ever admit that where Steve could hear.

Danny huffs quietly to himself. Hawaii is attempting to romance him. Trick him into believing it’s not a hellscape by giving him tidy little pieces of paradise, with good beer and good company and a good house and sunlight and an adorable goof to continually provide him with these things. All for the low, low price of his sanity.

There’s a cool bottle sliding around his left and nudging against his hands, and Danny jumps a little. Damn Navy ninja. The bottle passes between Steve’s hand and his own, and Danny is still a detective, so he doesn’t fail to realize that Steve’s standing just behind him, radiating warmth.

Wonderful. Steve has another mission.

He starts in on his new bottle like he’s completely unaware of the game Steve’s just started playing. It’s Danny’s turn to play at undercover, anyway.

When Steve finally speaks up, his voice is a hell of a lot closer to Danny’s ear than he’d anticipated. Danny is proud of himself for not twitching at all. “Did you like your party?”

“So he confesses,” says Danny, “I knew I’d crack you.”

“I thought I was already cracked.”

“Cracked in the head, yes,” Danny says with a little twist to his lips.

Danny can feel Steve’s breath tickling his ear and the back of his neck. Anticipation thrums through his body.

“So I’m gonna try something,” Steve says. His voice is low and Danny grips his beer bottle so tightly he’s afraid it might shatter in his hands.

“Scale of one to ten: How likely is it to result in bodily injury?”

Steve hums, and Danny swears he can almost feel the vibrations against the back of his neck, even though they’re definitely not touching at all. Danny’s fairly sure he’d notice a spot of fire bursting to life on his skin, if they were.

“Three.”

Danny swallows. “That’s a record low for you.”

“Turn around.”

Danny counts three heartbeats, loud in his ears. “This ‘something’ requires my participation?”

“That a problem, Danno?”

Danny turns around. The glint in Steve’s eyes isn’t just from the Hawaiian sun.

He expects Steve to make his move, because how could he not, looking at Danny’s ruggedly handsome face with such intensity, but no. The idiot just keeps standing there, close enough to count Danny’s pores, staring like he might just do that. As if there aren’t a million better things he could be doing right now. Truthfully, after what must be twenty seconds but feels like hours, Danny would almost prefer Steve pull out his gun and start shooting at suspects and putting their lives at risk again, because at least Danny knows how to handle that. This? He’s got no fucking clue what to do with this.

“You know, some of us are exhausted from running interfer—”

Apparently that’s Steve’s cue, and he presses himself forward until their lips meet. Steve kisses him all chaste and virgin-like at first, but then rapidly deteriorates into licking at Danny’s mouth like a slobbering puppy. For some inexplicable reason, Danny opens his mouth and lets him, and threads his fingers into Steve’s annoyingly short hair, pulling him closer.

Steve whimpers and paws gently at Danny’s shoulders, taking this puppy metaphor a bit too literally, so Danny, as the kind and giving soul, takes over and shows Steve a proper kiss. Danny expects him to fight back, to reclaim his dominance or whatever other ridiculously outdated idea of masculinity he’s got pinballing around in his head, but he doesn’t. He just melts into it, settles one hand on Danny’s shoulder and the other on his hip, pressing his back against the railing and letting Danny do whatever the hell he pleases.

As he well should. Since he owes Danny, and all.

They kiss until they’re both gasping for breath, then keep on kissing, and Danny thinks Steve probably tastes like beer, but he’s not sure if that’s the taste of his own beer or Steve’s. It doesn’t really matter. Danny lets his hands slide down to the side of Steve’s neck, his thumbs rubbing tiny circles against warm skin, pressing briefly until he can feel Steve’s pulse. Steve makes all these ridiculous, needy sounds that Danny learns he doesn’t think are all that ridiculous after all, because it’s giving him a head rush. Or maybe it’s all the not-breathing he’s doing.

They could easily keep doing this until the sun is well set, and the taste of beer is completely stripped from both their tongues, and until Danny has a horizontal stripe of a bruise across his back from the railing. But Danny’s life is a little more complicated than that, so he slides his hands even lower, until they’re on either side of Steve’s collarbone, and he gives himself another few seconds before he pushes Steve back and away.

Steve whines, high in the back of his throat, and opens his eyes to meet Danny’s. He’s pouting, but Danny gives him a playful smile that surprises him enough to stop that, and he asks “Do you have _any idea_ what you’re getting yourself into, here?”

Steve considers this. He actually looks like he’s _thinking,_ which means Danny hasn’t done his job well enough. But then his face twitches into a complicated sort of frown. “I’m a Navy SEAL. I can handle it.”

Danny laughs, and pulls Steve back to him, and vows to kiss him until neither of them know the word _complicated._

He hopes it takes all night.

 

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: I find it ironic how much time I spend dissing pineapple when I actually think it's the greatest fruit ever to grace this earth.
> 
> A/N2: No updates yet, but I just came across [this article](http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2015/11/17/decade-into-sex-change-surprise-pregnancy/75919232/) and thought I'd share. Because it is relevant to this story and because this family is the most adorable family I've seen in awhile. :)


End file.
